


to taste your beating heart

by PersephoneSyndrome



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Little Red Riding Hood AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-10
Updated: 2012-11-10
Packaged: 2017-11-18 08:38:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/559007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PersephoneSyndrome/pseuds/PersephoneSyndrome
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The children buzz with old stories of wolves in the shape of men, or maybe it's men in the shape of wolves. No one can seem to agree which is right.<br/>Gendry catches his reflection in the polished blade of a sword and sees the scar, the evidence of her kiss, and knows they are both wrong.<br/>The wolf is a girl.<br/>(Little Red Riding Hood AU)</p>
            </blockquote>





	to taste your beating heart

**Author's Note:**

> This story was inspired by the works of the ever-lovely sabotensan over on tumblr (though I believe the idea originated with the equally lovely lillithwithdiamonds). So thanks to her for being my muse again :]  
> Also, it should be noted that I have zero idea what time period this is set in-- or even where it is set in. If you happen to know, tell me.  
> Inspired by (and a few lines blatantly plagiarized from) Angela Carter.

 

  
_"The wolf is carnivore incarnate and he’s as cunning as he is ferocious; once he’s had a taste of flesh then nothing else will do." —_ Angela Carter _, The Company of Wolves_

 

The leaves of the weirwoods whisper to him again and again, thousands of blood-stained hands warning him away from this place. They are not the first to ward him off, though it's hard to say who—or indeed, what— was. Was it the protruding ribs of the half-starved livestock? The wall surrounding the village, woven from stone and earth? The bedtime stories? Ah, but bedtime stories belonged to mothers and to childhood, and Gendry cannot recall having either of these things. He had no one to teach him fear of the dark.

But still they whisper.

He shrugs off the sound, the way it makes the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end, as though someone were breathing down his collar. It does not do to dwell on such things, not when there is work to be done.

The package sits awkwardly between his shoulders, where it is slung, wrapped in scrap cloth. An exquisitely hewn broadsword, painstakingly crafted by Gendry himself for one Master Ilyn Payne. Gendry had done work for Master Payne before, and even made deliveries to him, but he had always been allowed to borrow Master Mott's horse. But the horse had thrown a shoe, and with the farrier closed for the evening, Gendry had been left with no choice but to race the sun to Master Payne's secluded home. Now though, dark is descending fast, settling into his skin like ice water. Winter is fast-coming, it seems.     

The howl of a wolf sounds through the chill air, sharp and sweet all at once. It pierces through him, and his blood sings, not like birdsong or choirs, but like metal on metal, the scrape of a blade across a whetstone. He keeps moving.

The house is small and dark, just a charcoal smear against the fast-fading light. He knocks at the door. Nothing. He knocks again, calls the owners name. He knocks once more, harder this time. The door creaks open.

Cautiously, he lets himself inside. "Master Payne?" He calls.

No lamps are lit, and it takes a moment for his eyes to adjust. When they do, they reveal quite plainly that something is wrong. Papers and books are scattered across the floor. Furniture is upended. An unlit sconce on the wall is crooked and bent. Warily, he follows the trail of broken items to the next room.

Ilyn Payne lays on the floor, his body broken and bloodied. A section of his neck is missing, as if it were ripped out rather than cut. Gashes rake up and down his body, wet and dark. His left leg lays at an impossible angle.

A figure stands over him, lithe and thin, like a wisteria tree in the winter wind. She is red red red, blood red, and what isn't red is white, white as bone, and her eyes are stone and stars and starvation.

He cannot react, cannot even think, before she pins him against the wall, her bone-white hand clenched around his throat. A smile twists on her face, feral and lovely all at once, the blood like rouge on her lips.

"What is your name, boy?" she murmurs. She bats her long, dark lashes coyly. She speaks as a lover might, but even if she weren't covered in man's blood, he would see the falseness in it, the murder in her eyes, the sharpness of her teeth.

"'M not a _boy_ ," he hisses against the pressure on his windpipe.

A fingernail, sharp as steel, tears a hot, scarlet line across the side of his neck. Gendry flinches. " _Your name_ ," she insists.  

"Gendry. Waters," he adds when she deepens the cut.

"What brings you here, Gendry Waters?" She stands on tiptoes to look him in the eye, close enough for him to feel her breath on his cheek.

"Master Mott is— was a customer of my employer's. He bid me deliver a sword," each word is a strain, and he debates overpowering her. She is small, after all. Yet there remains an inhuman quality about her, something he dares not test.

"He won't be needing that now," she grins. "But I shall pay you for your services, and I trust you shan't tell anyone of what you saw." He feels her hand slip inside his cloak, hears the clink of coins as she drops a purse inside his pocket. Gendry grits his jaw and remains silent.

"I suppose you think me a monster?" She cocks her head, inquisitive, strangely like a child or an animal in her curiosity.

"You killed a man," Gendry points out.

"Yes, well, he was a _very bad_ man." Her hand moves from his throat to his chest, and he feels her lips against the gash in his neck, cool against the hot blood. Then her lips are at his ear, close enough that he feels them move as she speaks. "Now run, boy," she coos. "Runrunrun."

He does.

\--

For a fortnight after, he dreams of her, of snow white as the insides of her wrists, of fruit red as the blood on her lips. He cannot say if they are nightmares or not, if they are what cause his sweat to run cold, or if it is because of the howling that wakes him in the dead of night.

A week after his death, Ilyn Payne's body is found split open, eyes sunken and blood dried black. He is not mourned, though his purse is.

 _Wolves_ , they whisper, _how did wolves get inside his house?_ The children buzz with old stories of wolves in the shape of men, or maybe it's men in the shape of wolves. No one can seem to agree which is right.

Gendry catches his reflection in the polished blade of a sword and sees the scar, the evidence of her kiss, and knows they are both wrong.

The wolf is a girl.

\--

A week after that, Master Gregor Clegane is found with his throat ripped out.

There is talk of building the wall higher.

\--

The dreams start again, more vivid than before. When he wakes, he half-expects her to be staring back at him with her flinty eyes. Whether it is relief or remorse that fills him when he realizes he is alone, he is not sure.

Before long he cannot sleep at all for dreaming. He finds himself wandering from the warm shelter of the forge into the frigid arms of the winter nights. Its fingers clutch at his thin shirt and creep into his lungs, but he continues to wander. Sometimes he images that he sees her shadow fall dark across the growing layer of snow, but he blinks and it is gone.

But then, he hears it. The wolfsong that breaks the night, that is brighter than the moon and harsher than the wind, and he knows. It is her.

She is not covered in blood this time, only a plain tunic and breeches. Her dark, roughly cropped hair blows about her shoulders in the icy breeze.

"Master Waters," she greets. "We meet again."

"You remember my name, but I have no name to call you," he complains.  

"That is because I have no name," she counters. She circles slowly about him, a predator stalking her prey.

"Then what may I call you?" He knows he is being teased, but something about her mockery seems to warm his blood.

"Why would you want to call me anything?" She cocked her head again, as she had in Master Payne's house, that queer, animal expression.

"I know of Gregor Clegane," he dodges answering the question properly. " _Knew_ of. He was—" how had she put it? "—a bad man."

She nods, understanding. "A very bad man, indeed."

He hesitates. "Was Ilyn Payne as horrible as he?"

"He was as horrible as he was paid to be," was her cryptic answer.

"And what was he paid to do to you?"

Her eyes go hard and dark as obsidian. She ceases her prowling. "He murdered my father."

The wind roars. In the distance, the wolves howl along. Gendry starts at the sound.

"Do they scare you?" She is playful again, though there is an edge to her voice as she taunts him. "Those are the voices of my brothers, darling. They sing for revenge, for blood."

"And who will die tonight?" he asks warily.

"A bad man," she says simply.

"They will kill you if they find you out," he warns. "They are afraid, and they will lash out. They'll eat you alive.

She lets out a hearty laugh, her head tilted back to expose the milk-white flesh of her throat. "I eat the  hearts of the wicked, not the other way around. I am no man's meat."

He does not know what to say.  

 There is a pause, and she takes the opportunity to take her leave.

"You really have no name for me to call you by?" He calls to her retreating back.

She halts in her tracks. "I belong to the woods, boy. To the winter, to the night. You belong to the village, to the walls. There is no name for one such as you to call me."

"I belong to myself," he corrects her, stone in his voice. "And my name is Gendry, not 'boy.'"

She is silent for some time. "Arya," she tells him. A gift.

And then she is gone.

\--

In the morning, one Master Meryn Trant is dead. His face is battered almost beyond recognition, and his heart has been torn from his gaping chest. Or so the villagers say.

Gendry goes out each night, lets the snow and the sleet cling to him while he waits. He does this for a month.

She never comes.

\--

When the winter is half-through, the tailor asks for Gendry's help putting bars on his shop's windows. Two more men have died since Arya ( _Arya,_ he savors the name in his mind) last appeared to him. The villagers are desperate to keep the dreaded wolfman out.

The tailor is a kind man and Gendry is not one to turn down work, so he forges the bars and fits them. It takes a week, and when the job is done, the tailor repays him in goods from his shop. Gendry picks a sensible brown wool to be made into a tunic, and a white cotton to be made into shirts for the summer. But one fabric catches his eye,  scarlet or crimson or ruby, a color for which he cannot articulate a name. But it is the color that has haunted his dreams, the color of her lips, of her kiss on his throat. He picks the bolt of fabric without thinking, surprising the tailor. A cloak, Gendry tells him. The tailor nods.

A few days later, Gendry receives the payment for his work, wrapped in brown paper and secured with thick twine. He opens it with trepidation. The cloak flows through his fingers, smooth, thick, and soft; it is surely the nicest thing he owns.

Night falls. It is time.

\--

He does not follow the path. He follows the sound of the wolves. The snow drives hard and fast, and it sucks and bites hungrily at his feet with each step. Still, the  cloak shields him from the cold.

He finds a clearing where the trees hold the wind at bay with their titanic arms, and he waits.

It is not long before she finds him.

"Someone has strayed far from the path," her voice slithers up his spine. He whirls about to face her.

"It does not take special skills to walk without it."

"I disagree." It is a compliment, maybe. Perhaps an insult. He is unsure around her. "It is not common for those who belong to the village to do so, in any case."

"I told you before, I do not belong to the village."

She looks as if she would like to roll her eyes. "Ah, yes. You only belong to yourself." She mocks him openly.

"And to whom I choose," he fires back.

"That is a fine cloak," she changes the subject. She is not so wary of him this time, not so aggressive or predatory. She stands still before him, unguarded. Her expression is one of curiosity. He finds that he like to inspire curiosity in the wolf girl.

"Better to be seen with," he explains.

"Seen by whom?" she persists.

"You," he does not take the same joy in being coy as she. He could almost swear he sees the predator blush. But it must be a trick of the light.

"Well, then. Congratulations on your success." She wanders slowly towards him, closing the distance between them.

"Do I get a prize?" She smiles at this, and it is genuine for once.

She considers this for a moment. "What do you want?"

"A kiss," he requests, bold and reckless with her presence. He feels, suddenly, as if he has drunk far too much, though the world remains sharp and clear, her face in perfect focus.

"A kiss," she repeats, stepping closer, close enough to see the sparks fly from the flint in her eyes.

"You have very strange eyes," he tells her.

"Good for seeing strange boys," she retorts.

Her kiss his harsh against his mouth. She bites at his lips, nips at his flesh, and remembers those who call her a wolf, a shapeshifter, a carnivore. The winter has licked their lips rough and dry, and it is not the soft, sweet thing of the love poems he hears recited by traveling performers in the town square. But he never paid any more attention to love poems than he has to bedtime stories meant to scare him away from the woods.

In the morning he wakes, covered in the red cloak and held between the paws of his wolf.

 


End file.
